---
title: After a while they heard a dancing of people, a roaring of wild beas… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: After a while they heard a dancing of people, a roaring of wild beasts, and a barking of dogs. Who acts: man, wild beasts. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/35/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Kaffir folk-lore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/) / [The Story of the Cannibal Mother and H…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/) / 35

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children., sentence 35

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
After a while they heard a dancing of people, a roaring of wild beasts, and a barking of dogs.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man, wild beasts · **What happens:** hear, dance, roar · **To what, where:** dancing, people

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, wild beasts), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg71335:15:35
# text = After a while they heard a dancing of people, a roaring of wild beasts, and a barking of dogs.
1	After	after	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	dancing	dancing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	roaring	roaring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	beasts	beast	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	barking	barking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	dogs	dog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | man | a dancing of people and a roaring of wild beasts |  |  | while | a barking of dogs *conj* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer dancing=Stimulus |
| 2 | **dance** |  |  | people |  |  |  |  | nom dancing «act transitive»: of=patient |
| 3 | **roar** |  | wild beasts |  |  |  |  |  | nom roaring «event intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Project Gutenberg book 71335 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/34/)
- next →: [sentence 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/36/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/)